LEVERAGING NEIGHBORHOOD EXPOSURES AS MODIFIERS OF INDIVIDUAL RISK FACTORS FOR COGNITIVE DECLINE AND DEMENTIAS

Abstract There are numerous ways in which neighborhood environmental factors have been shown to contribute to adverse health. More remains to be done to link long-term neighborhood exposures, such as social and physical activities, to modifiable individual risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Individual interventions are usually small in scale and conducted in those with higher socioeconomic status (SES). Additionally, increases in healthy behaviors, such as walking, have been difficult to promote and sustain. Each of these risk factors is known to be influenced by environmental features. This symposium will explore the roles of neighborhood-level social (nSES, affluence, cohesion, discrimination) and physical (air pollution) factors as drivers of cognitive aging and dementia across multiple longitudinal studies of community-based aging. Studies span urban and rural communities, including the Health ABC Study, the Cardiovascular Health Study, and the Think Phresh study. These studies are important to evaluating the role of neighborhood features on cognitive aging by expanding beyond cross-sectional data and by studying residentially stable older adults most likely to be affected by their local context. Those neighborhood factors that impact individual activity, cognitive aging, and Alzheimer’s disease risk will be further discussed for differences by race/ethnicity.

when searching in the four databases: CINAHL Complete; ERIC; MEDLINE; and PsycInfo.Researcher examined abstracts of all journal articles retrieved using the above criteria and further determined their relevance for inclusion.A total of 38 journal articles were included.Findings suggest that aging in community reflects a changing policy tendency from institution-based to community-centered care which better responds to the needs of the growing Chinese senior population.Family care remains older adults' preferences.However, individual, community, and larger contextual factors can be influenced, such as the number of adult children in the household, education level, residential area, accessibility to healthcare facilities, perceived cultural values of filial piety, state-owned enterprise reformation, and the one-child policy in China.

THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF PLACE ATTACHMENT ON ATTITUDE TOWARD AGING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
Jia-Jen Chen, and Li-Fan Liu, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Tainan, Taiwan (Republic of China) Psychological well-being has become a social challenge for vulnerable older adults and age-friendly cities/ communities has been a key aging policy focusing on environmental factors to enhance well-being in Taiwan.However, how older adults perceive their living environments and whether it is important when advocating older adults' positive attitudes toward aging leading to psychological well-being remains unknown.One of the place attachment dimensions is psychological attachment which has attracted attention in planning for aging in place and age-friendly communities (Aliakbarzadeh et al., 2021;2022).This study aims to investigate whether psychological attachment mediated the relationship between attitudes toward aging and psychological well-being among community-dwelling older adults in Taiwan.A faced-tofaced interview of 306 individuals aged 50 and over living in the community were interviewed.The Cronbach's alpha of all scales was over 0.70 which showed good reliability.The associations and mediation effects were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) and the model fitted the data adequately.After controlling for sex and age, the SEM findings demonstrated that the lower level of negative attitudes toward aging were significantly and positively associated with well-being (direct effect = 0.16, p <0.05).Furthermore, the lower level of negative attitudes toward aging was positively related with place attachment and consequently predicted better psychological well-being (indirect effect = 0.048, p = 0.034; total effect = 0.209, p= 0.003).We suggest that place attachment should be monitored in the policy of age-friendly communities while improving older adults' positive attitudes toward aging leading to a better sense of well-being.

A DIVERSE LIFE IS A BETTER LIFE? THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ACTIVITY DIVERSITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING IN HONG KONG
Zhixuan Lin, and Helene Fung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong The debate between the devotedness and evenness of activity participation has long existed.On the one hand, the theory of selective optimization with compensation (Baltes & Baltes, 1990) argues that successful aging depends on concentrating one's participation on fewer domains of activities.On the other hand, the social integration perspective (Rosow, 1967) posits that diversity indicates extensive knowledge and a sense of purpose, which contributes to well-being.A previous study found a positive relationship between activity diversity and older adults' psychological well-being in a U.S. sample (Lee et al., 2018).However, it might not be the case for people living in extremely hot weather as diverse activities might increase the risk of exposure to the heat.The current study examines their relationship in the hot summer months in Hong Kong, a tropical Asian city.Community-dwelling participants aged 60 years or above (N = 344, Mage = 67.15,SDage = 5.26) completed surveys 3 times each day over 10 days, reporting their activities, positive and negative affect, meaning and engagement of each activity, and loneliness.The regional heat-risk index was acquired from Hua et al. ( 2021).Results showed that activity diversity negatively correlated with positive affect, meaningfulness and engagement of daily activities, and positively correlated with loneliness.Heat risk did not moderate the relationship, but it correlated with less positive and more negative affect.Our findings suggest that Hong Kong older adults benefit from focused rather than broad participation in activities.

LEVERAGING NEIGHBORHOOD EXPOSURES AS MODIFIERS OF INDIVIDUAL RISK FACTORS FOR COGNITIVE DECLINE AND DEMENTIAS
Chair: Michelle Carlson Co-Chair: Andrea Rosso Discussant: Gina Lovasi There are numerous ways in which neighborhood environmental factors have been shown to contribute to adverse health.More remains to be done to link long-term neighborhood exposures, such as social and physical activities, to modifiable individual risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia.Individual interventions are usually small in scale and conducted in those with higher socioeconomic status (SES).Additionally, increases in healthy behaviors, such as walking, have been difficult to promote and sustain.Each of these risk factors is known to be influenced by environmental features.This symposium will explore the roles of neighborhood-level social (nSES, affluence, cohesion, discrimination) and physical (air pollution) factors as drivers of cognitive aging and dementia across multiple longitudinal studies of community-based aging.Studies span urban and rural communities, including the Health ABC Study, the Cardiovascular Health Study, and the Think Phresh study.These studies are important to evaluating the role of Pennsylvania, United States,2. University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,United States,3. University of Pittsburgh,School of Public Health,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,United States,4. University of Pittsburgh,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,United States Neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES), an overall marker of neighborhood condition, may influence multiple aspects of health and well-being in older adulthood, including cognitive function, though results regarding neighborhood and cognition have been largely cross-sectional.We examined the association between NSES and changes in cognitive function using 610 participants from the Pittsburgh site of the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) Study, a longitudinal cohort of community-dwelling, Black and white adults aged 70 and older.Changes in cognitive function were measured annually over a 6-year follow-up (2006-2012) using the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (range: 0-100, 3 visits on average per person).Using baseline home address, NSES was calculated for census tracts by summing z-scores of six 2010 census variables representing wealth/income, education, and occupation, and divided into tertiles.Multivariate mixed-effect linear regression models assessed associations, adjusting for individual-level sociodemographic and health-related covariates.In the fully adjusted model, the lowest NSES tertile (vs. the highest) was not associated with baseline cognitive function (β: -0.99, 95% CI: -3.86, 1.87) but was associated with a faster rate of decline in cognitive function (β: -1.54, 95% CI: -2.67, -0.41).No significant differences in baseline cognitive function or rates of change were observed in the middle (vs. the highest) NSES tertile.There was no evidence of effect modification by race.The results indicate that exposure to adverse neighborhood socioeconomic environments may accelerate cognitive decline in late life.The findings add to existing literature concerning the role of environments in the context of aging.
Policymakers are encouraged to promote older adults' personalized care plans; comprehensive health insurance coverage; constructive social/community environments (e.g.community parks or community open spaces for agefriendly activities); home care support, or smart home technologies for regular health monitoring.